„Well, we don‘t normally comment on the CIA director‘s travel, but given the extraordinary circumstances in this case, and the false claims being leveled by the Russians at the CIA, we can confirm that the director was in Kiev this weekend as part of a trip to Europe.

Senior level visits of intelligence officials are a standard means of fostering mutually beneficial security cooperation, including U.S.-Russian intelligence collaboration going back to the beginnings of the post-Cold War era.“